In the past months there has been much discussion on the debate of Birthright Citizenship.While many support this idea, Republican politicians like Donald Trump argue that the 14th Amendment is incorrect for giving citizenship to children regardless of their parents’ citizen status, and that immigrants are abusing this right in order to stay in the country longer or even permanently.
Throughout his campaign, Donald Trump has made it clear that he would like to change many laws in our country, but he has not been more consistent and outspoken with anything than his desire to get rid of birthright citizenship.
Donald Trump argues that the 14th Amendment does not cover children born to illegal immigrants and that their parents are abusing this right and having babies in the United States as an “anchor” to stay in the country.The term “anchor baby,” has caused a lot of controversy since it is considered to be an incorrect and offensive form of referring to a child born of undocumented parents, regardless Trump insists that there is no other way to refer to them and repeats the term consistently.
Trump believes that this law is what attracts more immigrants into our country which is a problem since there are constantly too many immigrants coming into our country. An article from CBS states that he said, “This remains the biggest magnet for illegal immigration.” As you can see Trump believes that keeping this right will only attract more immigrants into the country with hope that their children will one day maybe grant them citizenship.
This is one of the biggest magnets since it has even been seen that there are advertisements on the Mexican side of the border for people to come and have their babies in the United States. In an article from the NY times it states that such ads like a billboard at Mexican border say things like, “Do you want to have your baby in the U.S?” This goes to show that in fact there are people promoting for people to come and have their babies in this country which gives opponents the right to be angry and assume that people are coming to have babies in the U.S.
You may be wondering how exactly someone could abuse of this law, but it’s actually simple. Here in the United States any child of undocumented parents can help them get a green card after they turn twenty one and show proof that they are able to support their families. Opponents such as Trump believe that this is attracting more immigrants to come into the country so that sometime in the later future they have a chance at obtaining a green card for the United States.
Opponents to this right argue that abolishing this right would prevent as many immigrants from coming into the country, especially those who come to have babies. Undocumented parents would not have much reason to have babies here since they children would also be illegal and they would be at risk of getting deported with their whole family.
It is clear that the majority of the people who are in favor of abolishing this law are conservative and have a firm desire to abolish it as soon as they can, regardless of the fact that they understand it would be unconstitutional since this right is in fact stated in the 14th Amendment. Will our country actually gain more than suffer if we were to abolish this law?
Immigration Controversy Sparks 